by Marcus Sloss
I gave her a wink and a smile for the pertness, then tried to pet her ear and failed.
“Soon enough Master. I miss your soothing touch already,” she sighed. “The siblings sent me over with triple the amount of zinc you came here with after the first machines arrived home safely. ‘This is exactly what we need to build our masterpiece,’ they said. Based on the reports I have heard, we are smart to get them what they need. Miss Growlen and Mr. Ryan were waiting at the Xgate with the tanks. They asked to journey with me to the city to deliver the zinc to Longoria and here we are.”
The fidgeting continued until Sammie lunged through Willow trying to hug her.
“You were so brave Mistress Willow; your glory will be sung in the burrows for ages.” Sammie squealed.
Toth gave a hearty slothish laugh. When he had our attention he said, “My work here is done. Stick to Koor City and avoid offshoot cities for everyone’s safety. Trade up top is best suited to deal with the needs of other planets. If you have a problem, I am easy enough to reach for a video chat. The event was fun to watch. You humans are as reckless as the Kerbians. When you are ready to go home, I need all four of you to tap on the top of your disks, since we must physically haul you back home in the encased armor. We can do that for others at a steeper cost. You were the taste tester, as they like to say.”
I went to shake his hand and he frowned at both the gesture and the fact I was not in a body. Right.
“Thank you for your help. Is there a second market we should visit?” I asked and he shook his head no. “Then have a great day.”
“Same to you, enjoy your stay. Remember to sell your bodies, even the dead panther has value, or take them with you if you want,” he said walking up the ramp to leave.
When he was gone, I turned to our group.
“Longoria, any luck with meeting any of your youngins?” I asked.
She giggled and poked at my projection’s belly button, “I may be ancient, but I value the kind words. Alas, no such luck.” She switched back to business mode. “The last of the machinery was purchased. We can either go to the contract and job market or head home.”
“Master,” Sammie said, seeking my attention with her hesitantly wiggling ears, “The siblings said all was quiet when I asked if they needed you. They did say they could use a few additional machines, but I believe Longoria already acquired what was needed.”
“Ah, so to the contract and job market, it is. I take it we can contract a set of builders, for say a month, and then they will return here when our contract is over?” I asked and Longoria bobbed her head. “How about you Linda, Ryan? What are your intentions?”
“Initially, I just wanted to visit to scratch my curiosity. The fact that I have no real role in Bastion is most concerning. I think I’ve figured out what I’d like to do now, though,” Linda said, eyeing the arena. “An arena would be a nice new corporation to run. Assuming you don’t mind, I should have enough neilspar in my room that was in my personal bag to cover the startup costs.”
“I have yet to confiscate anything personal from anyone residing in the Bastion community. I am not going to start doing so now,” I said, folding my arms. “You sure about an arena?”
Everly snickered, “What about the digital worlds? I heard they have time dilation to the point where you can go on a month-long retreat in the deepest jungles and swing peacefully on vines for weeks, but only have an hour go by in real time. At least that is what my mom always tried to talk my father into doing.”
“Faeries are builders, and the Sluggeros are too busy. We would also require some software designers or something along those lines,” Longoria said before turning to look back over at the arena. “The pit makes sense. We would forgo contract shopping if we built up an inventory of synthetics. And we have more finances at home, should we need to come back and make additional purchases.” She tapped a finger on her chin. “Such a thing would be useful for my Faeries to start working out their aggression and disputes.”
“Have people received their backpay yet?” I asked.
Sammie shrugged. Longoria shrugged. Shit, another thing Perci would have to fix.
“We are in no rush,” I sighed, “Let’s go contract shopping. We should all learn about the costs involved with running an arena or a virtual world. We don’t have to buy anything right at this moment, though, I am sure producing synths is not cheap.” I waved at the arena. “Nor projecting into them,” I said, motioning us up the ramp.
When we were all on the platform, Longoria entered a destination in the market. We zoomed across the city through the traffic; some invisible operator handled our flight path. I forgot how long a day here lasted or what cycles gave the aliens more freedom right now, but the city felt busier. We arrived on the outskirts of a market area on a massive parking pad. An elevator shot us down to the bottom and a moment later we mingled with the masses of shoppers crowding into and out of the vendor booths.
A young faced bear with a cat tail held up a digital sign to my left.
Market tours. .000001 gram of neilspar.
Ouch. I walked towards the lad, when Longoria chimed in from my elbow. “We don’t need his services,” she said.
“Indeed,” I replied, “but I am here to learn not just about how to design something this grand, but about the residents here too.” The boy's sign lit up when I paid the fee and I named him Teddy.
“Oh,” Teddy said in surprise, seeing that he had a paying customer. The lad ran to stand before my disk projection. “Thank you! I am your guide for the next…” The translator angrily buzzed as it calculated the time conversion, “Two hours and fourteen minutes. How may I help you?”
“Do you know much about this arena or synthetics?” I asked, bending over and placing my hands on my knees to lower myself to his height.
The boy wagged his tail in a gesture I was unable to comprehend. “No, sir I do not.”
“Virtual worlds and—”
“Yes! Follow me,” Teddy said, interrupting my sentence and turning to hurry off. His excitement was mildly contagious and I jogged behind him with a grin. The others hollered at us when we started to outpace them. “My father is a systems manager at Virtabox just down the road, Teddy said over his shoulder. “He will be able to get you everything you need to either visit or set up your own virtual world if you buy his time.”
A quick peek back over my shoulder revealed the others were barely able to keep up. We never actually entered the market. We ducked through a short alleyway that I shouldn’t have actually ducked for. We exited onto a long busy road and within a few short minutes at a brisk walk, Teddy pointed at a larger version of himself I named Ted. We stepped into a small, well-lit store with a few pods off to the side to plug into one of a thousand available virtual worlds.
“Can I help you Teddy?” the father asked his son. Ted cocked an eyebrow and pointed at me with a nod. Ted turned to me. “Are you here to enter one of our virtual worlds or for something else?” he asked.
“I am from a different planet. We are upgrading a secure base, far from the Xgates. We could use some equipment like this to help our citizens adapt to the new way of life by offering time-dilated relaxation on virtual worlds,” I said as the rest of my team arrived. Ted’s eyebrow rose when Longoria fluttered in. “We have a few tech-savvy species who will want to talk with you about what we should need.”
“Well, hiring my son was the best decision you could have made to get what you need at a reasonable price. I have a cousin about a hundred floors down who sells fantastic ratio gear cheaper than the vendors do up here,” Ted said. I grew confused as he continued. “The cheapest virtual machines we have are only suitable for a single person with no time dilation.” His mouth twisted with a frustrated growl, “You can tweak the cheap stuff only so far. Their core coding is ingrained, and their processing power relatively limited. Basically, either you buy nice gear from the get-go or buy something that you can afford and replace it, as you can, with a better ver
sion later on.”
Longoria stepped up. “We would need a twenty-to-one, with a hundred thousand server.”
“Huh?” I said and noticed that everyone else from Earth was equally lost.
Teddy chuckled and said, “Is there anything else you would like to tour, boss?”
“Does that mean we are done here?” I asked, still confused about random server numbers and ratios.
Ted peeled back his lips from a large set of canines when he smirked. A prompt for a hundred and twenty pounds of zinc hit my display. Longoria accepted before I could.
“Eric, you are a genius, we just saved twenty percent off retail,” Longoria said. “Even after he got his five percent commission … for his time. Ha!”
“You came to the right place,” his canines flashed again, “thanks for sending my kid to advanced schooling.” Pointing at his son, Ted said sternly, “That was a figure of speech, Teddy, get back to work.” The happy gleam in his eyes gave the lie to his harsh tone.
I had just raised my hand in the air to ask someone to clarify what had just happened, when I received an incoming, priority notification.
“This is Sally, you have raiders shifting through Colorado Springs and Aspen’s residents refuse to leave. Please return home.”
That was all I needed.
“Tap your feet,” I commanded my ladies, “we're going home, soonest.”
The four of us reached down between our toes and tapped our discs to return to our bodies.
CHAPTER 21
The Koovorin Council facilitated a hasty exit to return us back to Earth. I exited the submersible container, sprinting in a fevered run for the blue portal. The only one faster than me was Everly, with her long legs. When the blue shined in my eyes and I stepped back onto Earth I was relieved. My army was not waiting for me, instead, I found a company of heavy TG99s arranged to guard the portal.
My Gpad went crazy with alerts that I chose to ignore. AH1 dropped down from the heavens above to cut me off. I darted up the back ramp, racing across the hanger. The moment I entered the captain’s room, I called Jevon for a report on the situation, or SitRep.
“SitRep follows: the enemy has a high level of technology. They are utilizing a combined arms formation. An insect humanoid we named the Butterflin are carrying a slithering snake humanoid species we termed the Naga. They are currently pilfering the last of Colorado Springs. Our new Gtower there indicates they are in the process of continuing the assault in our direction. We expect them to transition to Aspen, next. We immediately issued a mandatory evacuation order for all residents. Seven hundred humans, however, have not complied with this order to evacuate within the next half-hour, fearing we are tricking them out of their homes to relocate.”
I kicked the wall in frustration while I waited for additional details. Nothing. Hmm… I ground my teeth in a grimace.
“Force status update,” I requested.
“Looting teams have been pulled in, the majority of the army is rallying at Rubble. What are your orders, Cap?” Jevon asked.
I mulled it over. The screens started populating as Willow and Longoria arrived. Everly left to command a TG99 company, leaving me to decide a lot of things, with only Willow to boss around.
“Await orders,” I said to the command net. I then dialed up the local tank commanders. “Pull off Xgate 232, proceed direct to Rubble.”
“Us too?” Longoria asked sharply.
I sighed, seeing Sammie with some our new purchases racing from the Xgate. “Hold position, we will leave someone here if we need to. Get me a video feed of the enemy, Willow.”
“This is a good time for me to intercede,” Sally said. “Those people in Aspen were on the fence about moving underground. There was a low probability of them accepting their new home without first seeing what we have constructed. May I send an emergency -”
“Yes, convince them to flee Aspen. We can’t defend its infinite alleyways, rooftops, and balconies from an invading army with aerial capabilities,” I ground out. “Actually,” I paused and organized my thoughts, “let me tell them.”
My inner warrior demanded I vent my rage at the idiocy of these humans. Why!? A few deep breaths later, a display popped up showing the enemy shifting into a tandem formation.
“All residents of Bastion Community,” I began, “We are at war. If you do not retreat to a defensible position immediately, you will be abandoned. I cannot risk an army to rescue the naive. I implore you, I beg you … in fact, I demand you leave Aspen at once via the underway.”
My eyes never left the video stream depicting a rapidly developing crisis. There must be at least ten thousand snake-warriors wearing armor with some form of plasma weapon less than an hour’s flight from Aspen. Their effort to coordinate with the butterfly humanoids was smooth; each tandem lifted off to join up with their compatriots in droves. The first flights gained some altitude and we waited with bated breath to see which direction they turned. I groaned when they flew directly for Aspen. I was immediately stuck with two bad choices.
Either let the civilians get killed or captured, or fight an intense close-quarters fight in urban terrain that would most likely ravage Aspen. This is why we were moving. I glanced at another video showing Sammie with the last of our purchases was only two minutes out.
I dialed up Everly and ordered, “Assign a tank to take Sammie home.”
“Boss, we’ve got hostiles on the move,” Jevon updated me. “Orders?”
“We fight, but Aspen companies only, except Mitchell’s rangers, who I want providing harassing fire forward of Aspen yesterday. I want Eddy, and Slister on ready-hold QRF from a flexible position. If we get hit at Mansion at the same time, there is no sense with having all our forces in one spot,” I ordered.
Mclain sent me a single question mark text before I could address his unit.
“Mclain’s heavy infantry,” I commanded, “beat feet for Mansion. Bastion forces, Go!”
Longoria hoisted us off the ground and we shot forward. She aimed us for a position behind the tanks. A video displayed on my Gpad, tracking the invading army’s progress. I saw, on one of the displays before me, the Aspen underway platform suddenly flood with people who thankfully looked to be heeding my warning. The guards at various choke points in and around Aspen were requesting orders. Sally got to them before I could and sent them to defend the underway platform at all costs. Despite the chaos at the platform, my Gpad still showed a couple hundred people huddling inside their homes, refusing to flee.
AH1 drifted into a hover behind Ulanda’s command tank, which towed a sled stacked high with shielding generators. Our forces were on the move, with Torrez and his infantry on sleds being towed to the fight. Bonnet’s light tanks were already swarming into Aspen. We would be outnumbered, I thought, but not outgunned.
“Requesting sitrep on enemy,” I called out over the command channel.
I was surprised when it was Harvard who answered, “Enemy forces adapted to using nitrogen power. They have smaller power packs, however, than those we use, with less of an output and no heavy weapons. This appears to be a light unit assaulting us. We caught enemy drones reconning Aspen. Our defenses were sparse there when the enemy first arrived from their Xgate. I predict they’ve already noticed our army coming to intercede. They will beat the heavy tanks into Aspen if they speed up, meaning they likely secure a foothold, even if you go full speed.”
“Are there signs of any heavy mecha or support constructs?” I asked.
“Not at this time no, Harvard out.”
I crunched his words into my reactive process. We would win this fight, but if it meant protecting humans inside fancy hotels, it would likely be costly. I rubbed my eyes, already gaming out the fight.
There was only one thing we could do, try our best. The TP63s finally crossed the abandoned northern barriers. They hovered at full speed up and over the defenses. Another reminder of why we were moving. That fucking wall was not even a speed bump for an advanced tank.<
br />
The light tanks poured into downtown Aspen right as the first waves of Butterflin crested the nearby ridges, with Nagas clutched underneath them. The long snake tails wiggled in the mountain air, first by the hundreds and then the thousands. The sight of the enemy army was something I would never forget.
“Open fire!” I commanded across all channels.
Blue arcs of power reached for a skyline filled with targets. There was no need for focused fire here. Each TP63 tank shot was knocking a duo of targets out of the sky. You’d think the foe would turn around or head to ground, but instead, they flew faster, diving for the nearest hotels. Fuck fuckity fuck, I grunted and had to restrain my desire to lash out. The TG99s finally started arriving, but it was too late.
The enemy returned red streaks of inaccurate fire that did little more than smash a number of small businesses and other buildings on the outside of town. Suddenly, I realized the Butterflin and Nagas were not aiming for my troops. The rounds blasting out of their weapons punched holes into the sides of the nearest high rises. Rubble from these buildings rained down as the enemy sought refuge inside them.
Not once did our firing abate. The constant rocking of the tanks lit the sky blue with their lethal projectiles. Despite our sustained volleys of destruction, more than half the enemy was able to dart into cover. Those dozen buildings, unfortunately, had over a hundred and fifty stubborn humans in them; idiot citizens who had refused to obey my evacuation order now cowered under the enemy’s guns.
I grunted in frustration. If only we had arrived a minute or two earlier. Some battles are decided by seconds.
The enemy had paid heavily for these defensible positions, however, and I was furious that they had secured a toehold on the edge of Aspen.
“Movement from the Xgate. Dual sledded walkers with triple cannons in a large elevated configuration for firing are transitioning through now. I am showing additional hydrogen power plant signatures. The enemy in Aspen sent a distress signal to their forces at the Xgate. They are pouring through the Xgate now. I should be able to give you a final tally ...” Sally suddenly paused. Her Sluggero voice was calm and cool. “I have a commander Smisserin on the line for you, Cap.”
